MoMA PS1 today revealed Connie Butler as its next director. Butler arrives in Long Island City, New York, an institution of the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, where she has been chief curator since 2013. Known for her commitment to local emerging artists, she served as chief curator of drawings for the Robert Lehman Foundation at New York’s Museum of Modern Art from 2006 until his move to California. Butler will step into his new role on September 26.
“We are thrilled to have Connie Butler join MoMA PS1 after her outstanding conservation leadership at the Hammer over the past decade,” Sarah Arison, MoMA PS1 Board Chair, said in a statement. “Through our extensive search process, we welcome a new director who deeply understands MoMA PS1 and our artist-centric DNA, and will ensure that we remain at the forefront of innovative programming that serves our communities at all levels. locally and internationally.”
“With its close working relationships with artists, established and emerging, and its long-standing relationships with MoMA and New York, we know [Butler] will advance MoMA PS1 in all aspects of its ambitious program,” MoMA Director Glenn Lowry said in a statement, adding that he looks forward to working with her again.
At the Hammer, Butler co-curated the critically acclaimed exhibition “Now Dig This!” Art and Black Los Angeles 1960–80” (2012) and a major study of the work of Mike Kelley (2013). She curated the 2014 iteration of Made in LA and solo shows by artists such as Marisa Merz, Adrian Piper and Lari Pittman. During her tenure at MoMA, she curated the first major US exhibition of Lygia Clark’s work, and in 2010 was a member of the curatorial team for MoMA PS1’s five-year Made in New York. She previously worked at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, where she arrived in 1996 as a curator. Among the exhibitions she curated or co-curated was the museum’s 2007 flagship exhibition “WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution,” which she oversaw at MoMA when the show traveled there in 2008.
Butler replaces Kate Fowle, who left MoMA PS1 last June after three years in the role. The British-born Fowle came to the post, which had been vacant for a year, after longtime frontman Klaus Biesenbach left to lead LA MoCA (he now heads Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie). Fowle had been in the job for just seven months when the global Covid-19 crisis hit; this spring, she accepted the position of senior curatorial director at the premier gallery Hauser & Wirth.
“MoMA PS1 has a remarkable and significant history, a rich and exciting current community of staff, artists and audiences, and potential that seems limitless,” Butler said in a statement. “I am honored to have been chosen to lead this institution, and I look forward to working with the Board and staff as we continue its mission of serving the communities of New York and Queens, as well as the wider international network of artists who represent MoMA PS1’s incredible past and future.
